


a woman a man walked by

by missymeggins



Category: Life (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-27
Updated: 2009-04-27
Packaged: 2019-05-02 12:59:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14545281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missymeggins/pseuds/missymeggins
Summary: I'm extremely nervous about this because I think Dani Reese is so well written on the show that trying to match that standard has been intimidating as all hell. I really wanted to explore her voice though and do it justice. So constructive ciriticism is definitely welcome.





	a woman a man walked by

**Author's Note:**

> I'm extremely nervous about this because I think Dani Reese is so well written on the show that trying to match that standard has been intimidating as all hell. I really wanted to explore her voice though and do it justice. So constructive ciriticism is definitely welcome.

For Em ([](https://teenwitch77.livejournal.com/profile)[ **teenwitch77**](https://teenwitch77.livejournal.com/)) cos, as per usual with my tv obsessions, this is all her fault. Hope you like it sweets.

Notes: I'm extremely nervous about this because I think Dani Reese is so well written on the show that trying to match that standard has been intimidating as all hell. I really wanted to explore her voice though and do it justice. So constructive ciriticism is definitely welcome.

 

 **a woman a man walked by.**  
_They never seem to understand that this is Dani’s game, and she’s always in control_. **life**. dani reese character study.1,660 words, m. gen spoilers for s1  & s2

 

 

*

 

Dani Reese knows addiction.

She knows it inside out, upside down and all ways round. She’s known it all her life and sometimes she thinks she’ll probably know it til her death.

(She’s that kind of girl. The girl that falls further and harder than anyone ever thought she could. And then, when you think she’s fallen as far as she can, she falls a little further.)

Dani Reese knows that addicts don’t ever really get _clean_ \- they just replace one addiction with another. They trade in highs and lows, compulsions and downward spirals.

They simply bounce from one thing to the next.

So when her job gets put on the lines she trades coke for nameless sex - and it works for her. It’s the kind of self destruction that addicts understand.

(It hurts her just enough to keep her from needing to hurt herself even more.)

 

*

 

When Dani Reese walks into a bar, she likes it to go something like this.

It’s dark and dingy, so they can’t see her very well, and she’s wearing serious slacks and her shirt is buttoned, so they can’t see her body the way they’d like to - but when she sits down and tells them to buy her a drink they do. Because they know how it will end; they can see it in her eyes.

She wants to lose control.

(They never seem to understand that this is Dani’s game, and she’s always in control.)

So they buy her a drink, and another, and just one more. Then they wait for her to say ‘let’s get out of here’ so that they can’t be accused of trying to use her. Even though that’s exactly what they’re doing.

(Occasionally there are exceptions: the guy who gets her back to a room and then decides he wants to talk, or the guy who sleeps with her and then asks for her name and number, but those guys are few and far between.)

After that, it’s all drunken, emotionless fucking in cheap hotel rooms.

She always tries to leave before they wake up; it’s harder to hide from reality if it talks to you on your way out.

 

*

 

At some point she trades nameless sex for an almost-relationship with Tidwell and she’s not quite sure if she can deal with that.

It seems like there’s a certain amount of self destruction attached to it – and more than a little risk. Sleeping with her boss? It should be a sure fire disaster, and the only question in her mind when she starts is just how much it’s going to burn her.

But somehow – _somehow_ (why is there always a _somehow_ that manages to sneak up on her without her realising?) it’s not a disaster. It’s almost something good and she’s just not sure if she can let it _actually_ be good.

She’s not sure she knows how.

(There’s a reason she tells Crews that ‘ _things were going too well_ ’ was a lie. It’s because it wasn’t. Not completely.)

 

*

 

For Dani Reese, life goes something like this.

She starts drinking when she’s twelve. It’s a clear ‘ _fuck you_ ’ to daddy and the constant fluctuation between indifference and impossible expectations.

She starts fucking boys in the back of cars when she’s fifteen because they all want her and she discovers she likes to be in control.

She stops talking to her father when she’s sixteen because she has nothing to say to him and her silence is one of the few things he has no power over.

Somewhere in all that mess though, something shifts and there’s a decision – shape up, finish high school, become a cop. But that’s an ‘I _’m sorry_ ’ to Ma, and it has nothing at all to do with her father.

( _Nothing at all, nothing at all, nothing at all_.)

And from there it all just becomes a cycle.

She drinks; she fucks; she throws herself into her work.

It’s a routine she can deal with until throwing herself into her work becomes a little too entangled with all the other self destruction.

The drugs are there and she isn’t a cop; she’s a _wayward girl gone a little too far off the tracks until there’s nowhere else to go_ and the drugs are just a part of playing that character and keeping their trust and doing her job.

( _But she isn’t a cop, so it isn’t her job becomes_ a little too easy to believe and the lines begin to blur and bend inside her mind.)

 

*

 

( _You never shot up in room where a guy blew his head off and you’re thinking you’re lucky cos he didn’t get his brains in your dope; or find yourself lying in a pool of puke and crap while you didn’t care whose crap it was because the whole time you were thinking you were so sick and all you wanted was to get off and get well_.)

She keeps truths like those in a small corner of her mind so that she doesn’t have to face them too often.

But every now and again someone forces her to drag them out and look at them.

Like Lieutenant Davis when she puts on that face that says ‘I know your family so I have to care about you’ and asks her if she’s ‘working the program.’

Or when Tidwell says ‘so you found that dead girl in an alley full of drugs’ but what she really hears is ‘you’re too fucked up to handle that so you better get your ass back in AA’.

Or worst of all, when some prick with serious abuse issues from AA becomes psychotic about ‘ _I know you_ ’ and she’s just so determined to prove him wrong she actually tells him the truth.

She lets that girl – ( _that fallen girl, so wayward and worn she couldn’t find her way back home_ ) – slip out from behind the badge and when she feels something wet roll down her cheek she almost doesn’t recognise it for what it is because _Dani Reese_ doesn’t cry.

( _But that girl – she cried_.)

It’s an exercise in pain that she wasn’t expecting but in the end it’s ok because he holds her up and doesn’t let her fall.

After that night she thinks he’s still holding her up sometimes.

Because she doesn’t seem to fall as much.

 

*

 

She doesn’t believe in people healing other people. Love doesn’t mend things; love is what tears it all apart to begin with.

She doesn’t believe _partners_ is anything sacred. There’s a certain amount of loyalty attached to it, but that has nothing to do with the individual; it’s just part of the training and, besides, everyone knows that loyalty has a flexible meaning when it comes to the department.

(That’s part of the training too.)

She knows Crews is her punishment for screwing up, and she’s his for winning his job in a lawsuit.

She doesn’t expect the symmetry to have any meaning; they’re not supposed to heal each other or change each other in any way. They’re just supposed to deal with each other and catch killers. It’s supposed to be that simple.

But of course it’s not.

(Nothing ever is in Dani’s life.)

She learns to put up with the Zen because he’s a good cop. She learns to _respect_ him because he’s a good cop. She becomes accustomed to him because, in spite of all his quirks, he’s a good partner and they fall easily into routine.

That’s when it all starts to blur.

The Zen just becomes part of their routine and sometimes it even makes sense - though she never wants Crews to know that.

He buys her a Christmas present (that’s far too early) and it’s a gesture hidden behind a 50 million dollar settlement and the processes of investigation but it makes her smile because she’s learnt enough about him to know that it means something.

She finds herself at his bedside every day after he gets shot and she can’t pretend – even to herself – that he’s just her partner anymore.

She still believes that people don’t heal each other.

But she concedes that maybe, if it’s the right person, they can help fade the scars.

 

*

 

Tidwell surprises her. She expected any relationship with him to be short term; a few fun fucks, some inappropriate office flirting, some lewd comments when her partner was out of earshot and then he’d be out.

She’s not used to being anything more to a man than instant gratification and, if she’s honest, she’s not used to wanting anything more from a man, than just that.

(It’s always been about the fast fall, the hard fall, and nothing more.)

But this fling with Tidwell has become more than that and she’s surprised at how _easy_ it is.

There are no expectations or demands - at least not from him - and she finds it easy to believe him when he tells her that if she’s not coming with him, he doesn’t want to go there.

She knows he’s not just talking about the alcohol; he’s telling her that he’s in this for good or bad, whether she wants him to be or not.

And the funny thing is, she’s pretty sure she does want him.

 

*

 

There is a moment - ( _all she needed was a moment_.)

There is a moment when everything just seems to _fit_ and words like _partner_ and _lover_ have become more than just worthless clichés.

That moment is filled with dust and adrenaline and the light streaming through an orange grove and the knowledge that he’s there.

 _He’s right there_.

 

*

Dani Reese knows addiction; so it surprises her to realise that her life no longer revolves around it.

Instead there’s a lover and a partner and Zen and a _lot of fruit_.

And she thinks she might just be ok with all of them.

 

*

 

 


End file.
